Standards and Public Appointments Committee, 24 Oct 2006

Meeting date: Tuesday, October 24, 2006

Official Report 152KB pdf

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Cross-party Group

Welcome to the ninth meeting in 2006 of the Standards and Public Appointments Committee. I remind members and others to switch off their mobile phones. We have received apologies from Linda Fabiani and Karen Whitefield, who both have other committee meetings to attend.

I am delighted that Duncan McNeil is with us for agenda item 1. He is the proposed convener of the suggested cross-party group in the Scottish Parliament on young people in Scotland who are not in education, employment or training. We will deal with the application in the usual way. After Duncan McNeil has made any comments that he wants to make, members will have the opportunity to ask questions.

I thank the committee for rescuing me and giving me a break from the Scottish Parliamentary Corporate Body's meeting; unfortunately, I will have to go back to it.

The objectives of the proposed cross-party group have been outlined in the required paperwork, all of which I think has now been completed. We know that 20,000 young people fall into the NEET category. The Scottish Executive obviously has an interest in and a strategy on those young people, but a wider interest is held by people such as the Smith group, and charitable organisations, which are anxious that we develop some cross-party work on the issue. I was pleased to work with them and with all my parliamentary colleagues who take an interest in the subject. We hope to do some good work, even though there are only about six or seven months of the parliamentary session left.

I have a question that I feel I ought to ask for the sake of continuity, because I asked it the last time we considered an application to form a new cross-party group. I do not question for one second the need for or the relevance of the proposed group, but given the short time that remains in the parliamentary session, what do you hope to achieve? Perhaps you could expand on that.

That is a relevant question. The matter was discussed with parliamentary colleagues and supporters at our most recent meeting. Our objectives are pretty limited. We have in mind some legacy work. We are considering holding one major event that would allow us to highlight the issue as we approach the end of the parliamentary session. Our objectives are limited—they relate mainly to legacy work. We want to establish the group and hold at least one major event to encourage other people to become interested in the subject. That is about the limit of our ambition at this point.

I wish you every success.

As there are no other questions, I take it that members are content that the proposed group complies with the requirements for cross-party groups and that we approve the application. Is that agreed?

Members indicated agreement.

I will write formally to Mr McNeil to approve the application. Enjoy the rest of your morning with the corporate body.

I thank the committee.